So, um, what's the difference between a serious, a willful, and a criminal case, and how do I know which one I'm actually in?

You never actually know if you're in a criminal case until you find out that you're in a criminal case.

Um, one of the things that I tell employers all the time is, you, you know, if you have a death or serious injuries in your case, you know, there is a criminal investigation that is taking place, even if it's not a particularly active criminal investigation on the part of local law enforcement.

So it's either gonna be the county or the state is going to be looking at those cases from the standpoint of, is there some sort of criminal neglect? Is there some sort of criminal intent, what have you, that resulted in this incident? From an OSHA perspective, you know, a, a serious involves a lesser level of defiance of the standards than a willful involves.

So a willful is you violated the standards and you knew or, or essentially knew that your violation of the standard was going to result in serious bodily injury or death.

Whereas a serious is, you know, not so much on the knowing part about the standard, not so much on the intent part in terms of the injury, but has a h- a, a, a high degree of probability of causing serious injury.

Criminal cases are limited in the OSHA world.

So is there a case where the facts look terrible, uh, for your client at first, but then you found a way out? Can you-- It's something that you can think of off the top of your head?